Zombie Jaune of an Ended World
by WolfFiresword
Summary: Jaune is a zombie from an ended Earth who ends up on Remnant, and decides to protect it. He just has to keep his identity as a walking corpse a secret from his friends. A sorry attempt at a story. Don't expect regular updates. Rated M for mild gore, future gore, and most likely foul language. (Discontinued until further notice. Open adoption.)
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! Wolf here, with a new, sorry excuse of a story. Don't expect regular updates, I write when I have inspiration, and don't like, don't read. RWBY belongs to RoosterTeeth and Monty Oum, and any zombie movie details that I may unintentionally copy belong to their respective owners.**

Hi, my name is… You know, I can't remember, any and all pre-death memories come back in rare flashes, but more on that later

I shuffle down the cracked street, passing buildings that have long since collapsed, and the crumbling remains of skeletons dotting the streets. I pass under a rusted lamp post, listening to the wind pass through the ruins, as I look for any buildings that have yet to fully collapse. I've been wandering for a while now, so my shoes are pretty worn down. I'm going to have to replace them soon. A darkened building appears down one of the streets, and I shift my direction of movement. As I get closer, I see torn posters of comic books and anime characters, vestiges of an age long past. I ordinarily would have ignored a building like this, but uncollapsed buildings were a rarity these days, so I'll take any entertainment that I can find. I glance down at my ragged attire. New clothes too. I walk in through the broken glass of the abandoned store's doors, and look around. The place is a mess, all the displays are shattered, and there are comic books strewn all over the floor. I lean over and pick one up. The pages have been waterlogged, so the ink is ruined. This is a real disappointment, I'd cry if I could. Throughout however long I've been wandering, I've only actually ever found a few books that still had anything on their pages, and of those, I could only enjoy the one with pictures. That's right, I can't read, at least not enough to enjoy a children's level book.

Shuffling further into the store, I enter a back room. Jackpot. The room is a mess, but there's a skeleton wearing intact clothes and steel cosplay items. I remove the remains of my shirt, revealing the giant hole in my abdomen where my intestines used to be. I suppose this may be confusing to you, so allow me to clear this up. I, am by all definition, Dead. Capital D. Maybe with a Z. The apocalypse started years ago, I have no idea how many. All I know is that I died early on, and was stupid enough to get frozen solid on more than one occasion. Talk about boredom. I haven't seen any other Dead walking around in a long time, and even longer since I saw someone with a pulse. The hole in my abdomen? Shotgun blast. Some idiot in the final days of humanity thought it would be a great idea to leave his barricaded shelter in the middle of the night and run around, firing the last of his ammunition at anything that moved. I wasn't even looking at him, but I took a small amount of satisfaction watching my fellow Dead swarm him. Of course, Afterwards I felt a little bit bad, however, as the other Dead don't seem to be able to think like I can. Boring conversations.

Moving on! I steal his shirt, jeans, shoes and hoodie. The hoodie has a little rabbit head on it, half bringing back a memory of an old playconsole 2 game. It's not much, but I'll take any memories I can get. The cosplay items appear to be styled as a futuristic night. I stare at the armor set before I shrug. Why not? I put on the armor. It fits relatively well, and feels sturdy. I pick up the sheath, and accidently press a button by a handle, causing the sheath to open into a shield. Awesome. A few minutes of fiddling around with it later, I return the shield to its sheath configuration, and look at the sword. It feels comfortable (mostly) in my grip, and doesn't even scratch when I hit it into a knocked-over filing cabinet with all my strength. Nice sword. I'm keeping this.

Having gotten over my awe of the weapon, I rummage around the room, and find a phone charger, which would be awesome… if the power still worked. I take the cord anyway, sticking it in my new hoodie pocket. Over the next hour, I thoroughly search the store, and find nothing of real value, so I walk out and move on. It is night now, but the only noise is the wind. The living are all gone, and the last of the dead aside from me rotted away a while ago. I don't know why I can think, and why I haven't rotted. Maybe it's because I ate too many food preservatives in my previous life. Maybe I was a druggie, I have no way of knowing, and it's not like there are any scientists to ask, and the internet died years ago. I still mourn the internet. I look up at the starry sky, clearer now without light pollution and smog.

A shooting star appears. 'Cool… Oh shit!' The glowing meteor crashes into me.


	2. Chapter 2

My eyes snap open at the sound of a scream, and I sit up. 'Am I dead-dead? No, heaven wouldn't have a man threatening a little girl with a knife. I am currently sitting in a dumpster, and about twenty feet in front of me, there is a middle-aged guy pointing a gun I've never seen before (And I've been shot by several) at a little girl, my guess, around age six. Acting on a whim, I lunge at the attacker, quickly slamming his head into a brick wall. He is instantly unconscious. I look for the little girl, to ask her if she is alright, but I freeze as I start to form the words. The girl has little grey rabbit ears growing out of her head. I can see their radiant heat, so I know they're real. The girl quickly runs off. I poke my head out of the alleyway at about waist height, and look one way, then the other. No-one in sight. I retreat back into the dark alley and think. Other people. _Living_ people. Where am I?

I shuffle back over to the would-be murderer, thinking. How did I get here? Was it the glowing meteor? I shake my head, looking at the guy on the ground, and inhale. Dead. And blood, my guess is bleeding inside the head. I slam his head into the concrete a few times, enough to crack the skull, and eat the contents. Like plugging in a thumb drive, there is suddenly more information in my head. I don't get personal memories, but I get a general who, what, and where. 'Remnant, huh?' As I finish off the brain, feeling my mind sharpen slightly. I move on to the rest, until all that remains is bone and cloth. Disgusting, I know, but this is how I am. As I eat, gaining mass from my meal, the hole in my abdomen closes, a benefit of the zombie plague: lose something? Eat enough and you get it back! Except the brain. You lose that, and you are gone, but mild brain damage can be recovered from. I don't even have a scar. After all my injuries are healed, all other mass I eat increases my density, making me harder to damage, and giving me resources to repair without eating. That is actually how some of us could storm military compounds, they regenerated from explosions, and smaller bullets would bounce off skulls.

I find a wallet with a ton of Lien, apparently this world's currency, inside. I take that, and reset his scroll, its mine now. I toss the rest in the dumpster I woke up in a few minutes ago, a sacrifice to the magical wizard of garbage. I throw my hood over my head and walk down the street. Fine motor control is better, and I imitate a clumsy living person walk, definitely not because that is the best I can do. According to my latest… _information accumulation_ this world was threatened by the creatures of Grimm, who sought to destroy life, and huntsmen and huntresses defended most of humanity, protecting the living world. I stop walking by a glass window, looking inside. It's a family restaurant, children running around and playing, full of life and joy. I focus on my reflection in the glass. An unhealthily pale, cosplay dressed teenager with dead blue-grey eyes stares back at me. I clench my fist, and he does the same. My world ended, I'm not letting the same happen here.

Apparently, the guy I ate was big into crime, as my new archive of information tells me of the guy I need to talk to, to get into a huntsman academy, a club owner who goes by the name of Junior, who was a big part of underworld information dealings. The club wasn't that far from the alley I woke up in, and I rinse the blood off my face and hands, (Don't ask.) I walk past the guards, and over to the bar. No-one blinks an eye. I walk up to Junior, and say, "I hear… you can get things for people who need things." A small cloud of dust comes out when I talk, but he didn't appear to notice.

He looks at me with a raised eyebrow, "Who's asking"

"Jaune… Arc," I say automatically, surprised by myself. I thanked a high deity for memory flashes.

Junior isn't amused, "What kinds of things?"

"Forged… hunter transcripts. Money up front." He doesn't bat an eye.

"Easy enough, follow me. We'll discuss details." I follow.

I was actually surprised at how easy it was to get what I needed. I paid the money, we discussed details, and the papers were in my hand before the night was over. As I exit the bar, I notice a beautiful blond girl entering. She doesn't notice me, but I mainly notice her scent. Like a hybrid of a bird and a human, that was set on fire. I'm fairly certain that I'm the only one that can smell it, as it is covered up by perfume and hair conditioner. I shake my head and walk off. I find a local mailing service, and had my papers scanned and sent to Beacon Registration. I aimlessly wander, until I find a dark alley relatively close to the air docks, at least I think that's what they were called here. I lean against a wall, so I am completely covered by shadow, and think about plans.

A few hours later, my new scroll goes off. I check it, and it tells me that Beacon accepted me, and a date and time to be on a specific bullhead to the academy. I smile a little, setting a calendar alert on my scroll. I put it away, and walk out of the shadows. As I walk, I notice passers-by wrinkling their noses as I pass, as if they smell something foul. I sniff, but don't smell anything different, but then it hits me: I smell like a dead guy. I am a dead guy! I take out my new scroll and find a local convenience store. I try to make my walk there brisk.


	3. Chapter 3

One purchase of a dozen spray deodorant cans, and a thorough spray in yet another alley later, I no longer smell dead. I just smell like deodorant, which is a step up from dead. While I was at the store, I also bought a zippered bag and a few scroll chargers, just in case. The bullhead to Beacon leaves early tomorrow, so I return to a darkened alley near the air docks. Twelve hours pass, during which I clear my head and watch the pedestrians pass by. Some smell wonderful, some smell like farm animals. Don't judge me. You try being a zombie and not noticing how delicious people smell. Anyways, twelve hours later, my scroll goes off, telling me to get on the airship to Beacon, so I lean away from the wall, loosening my joints, and listening to my vertebrae pop.

Soon, I'm on an airship, looking at the city below. I may not remember doing it before, but flying is amazing, watching the city go on in every direction. I hear a couple girls talking about the view. That's when it hits. 'Shit,' I think, feeling my stomach convulsing. Dead like me cannot absorb all of what they eat. Things like ligaments, fat, and cartilage just collect in our stomachs (If we still have them, anyway) and as we do not possess functioning digestive systems, we vomit up anything we don't absorb, so I was about to lose the rest of my 'meal.' I run to the nearest garbage can, accidently leaving some 'zombie vomit' on a blonde girl's shoe. I'm not too worried about that, A bite is necessary for infection. The worst that might happen is her shoe dissolving.

"Eww. Gross, Yang there's some on your shoe!" I hear the girl dressed in red and black cry out. You don't know the half of it girl, I can't imagine the reaction if she knew exactly what was in the vomit, but I know it would most likely be hilarious. The ship soon docks, and I finish emptying my stomach, stepping off to survey the scene around me. Beacon, is beautiful. Or at least, in my opinion. I haven't exactly seen a lot of pristine buildings over the past few years.

I hear an explosion, and turn in the general direction of the noise. There's the girl in red from before, a girl in black, and a girl in white that reminds me of my sixth-grade girlfriend. Ah, wonderful pieces of the puzzle that is my past. There is an argument, during which the one in white asks red if she is brain-dead. 'No, that would be me,' I think. The girls in white and black walk off, and Red flops down on her back, clearly unhappy.

Time to make a friend. I walk over and offer my hand. "Hey… I'm Jaune," I manage to say. I'm still a little rusty at speech, but I'm getting better. "Ruby," she says, taking my hand, cringing a little at how cold it is, and I help her up. "Aren't you the guy who threw up on the ship?" she asks. 'Shit, I need an excuse.'

A few minutes later…

"All I'm saying is that motion… sickness is a much more common thing than… people let on," I say. A bad excuse, I know, but it's all I can think of without getting sent to a doctor. It would not be fun to explain why my heart isn't beating. I tried, they always try to kill you.

"Look, I'm sorry! Vomit Boy was the first thing that came to mind," she says. I don't blame her, but living people would retaliate to a name like that… Right?

"Oh, yeah? What if I called you Crater Face?" I ask, still struggling with prolonged use of my dead vocal-cords. Luckily, Ruby mistakes this for being socially awkward, which I won't deny that I am, I haven't had a friendly conversation in years. Junior doesn't count.

"Hey, that explosion was an accident!" she retorts.

"Well, I didn't intend to throw up," I double-retort. This conversation is fun, but I hide my amusement. Not that it's difficult, being dead and all. "Anyway, the name' Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue… ladies love it," I continue. My speech is getting better.

"Really?" she asks. She doesn't believe it for a second.

"Probably not," I admitted. We walk a few seconds in silence. She speaks up again.

"So, I have this," she says, pulling a mecha-shifting scythe from behind her back, proudly showing it off. If I wasn't a walking corpse, I would have pissed myself. "Woah, is that a scythe?"

"Yep, and it's also a high-impact sniper rifle!" She was clearly an enthusiast.

"A wha?" I struggled to keep up.

"It's also a gun," she clarified. That clears it up. "It's my baby, Crescent Rose, I built it at Signal," she says with pride. "So, what do you got?"

I freeze up for a moment, then I remember, "I have this," I way, pulling out the cosplay sword.

"Ooh," she says, mildly interested. I continue.

"I also got this sheath that turns into a shield," I say, pressing the button changing the sheath to its shield configuration.

"Nice," she says, more impressed by the shield than the sword. "What's its name?"

Oh shit. I try to think of something convincing. An electrical signal follows the wrong neuron, leading to an unused area of my brain. "Crocea Mors." I don't even know what that was, just random syllables? A phrase with meaning? Either way, Ruby is contented. "By the way, where are we going?" she asks.

I panic, "I don't know, I was following you! Wait," I say. I turn around and sniff the air. It's hard to smell with all the deodorant on me, but I can faintly smell a gathering of students a small distance away. "This way," I say, and follow the smell.

Arriving at the hall, I marvel at the architecture. There was nothing like this back on Earth.

"Hey, Ruby, over here! I saved you a spot!" the blonde girl who's shoe I threw up on calls. When her eyes pass over me, they narrow infinitesimally. Ruby doesn't notice.

"Oh! Hey, I-I gotta go! I'll see you after the ceremony!" she tells me, running off to join the lilac eyed blonde.

'Great, now where will I find a nice quirky girl to talk to?' I think. I look over the crowd. There is a literal red-haired girl staring at me curiously. She shifts her focus when she notices I saw her, and I do the same.

The entrance speech was short, ending with instructions for sleeping arrangements tonight, another problem altogether. I own nothing but my bag and what I'm wearing, so no pajamas and no sleeping bag. Not that I _can_ sleep to begin with, but eh, blending in. Time passed quickly, and I managed to remain undetected. We were assigned lockers to keep out belongings in. It's not like I would get uncomfortable wearing my armor, after all, I had been wearing it for a few days straight, but once again, blending in. I deposit the armor and the newly named Crocea Mors in my new locker. Students were ordered to enter the ballroom and go to sleep, so I entered, intent on finding a dark, out of the way corner to sit down in. Unfortunately, I was spotted.

"Hey, Vomit-boy, not sleeping tonight?" the blonde Ruby met up with earlier calls out to me. I sigh, if I ignore her, she will just draw more attention to me. Attention that I do not want. I walk over. "I haven't slept in 176 years, and I don't plan to tonight," I say, completely serious. I honestly have no idea where that number came from, but it sounds about right, counting the winters. She, of course, thinks that I'm just joking.

"Sure, you haven't. And you owe me a new pair of boots!" she shouts the final bit, her eyes turning a little red, as she shoves a boot in front of my face. Her boot looks like it was melted then subsequently set on fire, burned leather and melted rubber. I shrug, and reach for the dead guy's wallet, taking out 300 Lien, and giving it to her. The red instantly disappears from her eyes as she takes it.

"This enough?" I ask, getting a slow nod, and Ruby speaks up.

"That's way too much! You could buy multiple sets of boots with that!" Ruby exclaims.

I shrug, "Call it rewriting a bad first impression." The blonde girl speaks up,

"Call it rewritten, the names Yang, Yang Xiao-Long."

"The names Jaune, Jaune Arc," I say. Two can play that game.

Yang smirks a little, "You and I are going to get along just fine."

We talk for a while, then they attempt to befriend a black-haired girl who smells like a cat, so I use the opportunity to slip away. I find another dark corner of the room, over by a sleeping girl with orange hair and a sleeping guy with black hair and a pink streak. I lean against the wall, and watch as the white clothed girl gets into a fight with Ruby, and the black-haired girl blows out the candles. Why was she using candles in such a technologically advanced world? I may never know. I lay down and close my eyes to give the illusion of sleeping, and wait for morning. God, I hate waiting.


	4. Chapter 4

When light begins to seep through my eyelids, I decide it time to 'wake up.' I sit up, every joint cracking audibly as I do so. Damn rigor mortis. Nobody has started to stir yet, so I take this opportunity to hide in the locker room and mostly empty a can of deodorant on myself, slipping the mostly empty can back into my hoodie pocket. I return to the hall corner where I had spent the last several hours in time to see some of the sleepers starting to stir, most notably the orange haired girl. She wakes up quickly, and stretches quietly, with her eyes quickly sweeping the room.

'What is she looking for?' I wonder. She looks ready to kill anything that moves. Then, she suddenly calms, and her demeanor abruptly changes. Suddenly, she is caffeine and cocaine incarnate. She leans over the head of the blackette guy sleeping next to her, and proceeds to poke him. "Wake up lazy bun!" she practically shouts in his face, "Its morning, its morning its morning its morning!" He just sighs. I pity him.

I shake my head, turning my attention to the other stirrers. Soon, everyone wakes up, and heads to the cafeteria, but I don't follow. Reasons should be apparent by now. Instead, I head to the locker room, and realize that I can't remember what locker I put my stuff in. Shit.

By the time I remember that I was given a piece of paper telling me my locker number, the other hopeful initiates have finished breakfast, and swarmed the locker room. '634… 635… 63-' "Omph!" I bump into someone.

"…Sorry," it takes me a couple seconds to git the words out.

"Do you have any idea who you just ran into!" I hear an angry voice and turn. It's the girl in white from yesterday.

"…Should I?" I ask, after turning to see a crimsonette girl with unnatural looking green eyes. Seriously, what is up with eyes and hair in this world? I am taken from my thoughts as the girl in white starts yelling again. "THIS is Pyrrha," she says this like it's the most obvious thing in the world. She looks at me expectantly, as if expecting me to gasp.

"Hi?" I ask, still not understanding. The guy I ate didn't know about her either, so don't call me stupid. The now named Pyrrha smiles a little.

"Hello!" she says, waving her hand. The white-dressed girl, I'm going to have to get her name, her rants are hilarious, continues, frustrated.

"She graduated at the top of her class at Sanctum."

"Wazzat?" I unintentionally combine the two words. This further frustrates the girl in white.

"She won the Mistral Tournament four years in a row, a new record."

"The what?" Seriously, I can't remember what a tournament is. Meanwhile, Pyrrha smiles more, and the girl in white is more frustrated, and begins wildly waving her arms up and down. Even being dead, I can't resist the urge to chuckle at the image. Of course, it comes out as a quiet grunt. The girl in white continues, "She's on the cover of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!"

Having finished my microscopic chuckle fit, I voice my opinion on what I heard, "Pumpkin… Marshmallow… That sounds like it tastes bad." Not that I'd know, but, still. I remember why I was here. "Uhh, girl in white-" I start only to be interrupted by the girl in question.

"It's Weiss Schnee to you!"

I continue, "Would you please move? You-re in front of my locker." I stutter a little while saying you're, but I can mostly talk normally now.

"Would all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff for initiation. I repeat, all first-year students to Beacon Cliff immediately," comes the voice of that blond-haired teacher over the intercom. Weiss storms off in what I can only assume is the correct direction, followed by an apologetic looking Pyrrha. I stand there for a minute, then turn around, grabbing the sword-and-shield thing I brought from Earth. I'm not entirely confident with it as a weapon against the forces of darkness, but it's better than nothing. I try to run like a living person in the direction of the girls.

Less than five minutes later, I was at Beacon Cliff, standing on the grey square on the ground. The Headmaster, Ozpin, gives a small speech.

"For years, you all have trained to become warriors." 'Nope.' "And today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." This guy reminds me so much of that one picture book I found that may or may not be in my locker. Seriously, Wizard of Oz, Ozpin, Emerald City, Emerald Forest, this is a weird planet. The blond teacher, I think her name was Goodwitch, starts explaining along with Ozpin how team formation will work to us, but I only really catch the eye contact thing. I'm more focused on how we will be getting down to the Emerald Forest, so I miss a lot of what was said. The person to my left, who happened to be Ruby, disappeared, flung into the sky. 'Oh shit!' I think, as I am launched off a cliff.

 **Tiny Author Note: Kind of a filler chapter, so I'm sorry. Thank you to all who have read or commented on this story so far. Also note, this story will** **NEVER** **be abandoned without me writing a page telling so, because I hate it when people do that. I just have a hard time trying to write, there may be notable time between updates. The 'Oh shit' phrase ending the chapter isn't going to be a regular thing, because I know the joke wears out quickly, but semi-cliffhangers may be. Please leave a comment or suggestion, all will be considered, even if never implemented. 'Insert Zombie Jaune falling out of the sky'**


	5. Chapter 5

As I soared through the air over the monster infested forest, only one thought occurred to me: 'Ahhhh...!' I tumbled through the air in a state of perpetual panic, seeing ground then sky then ground then sky over and over, for the better part of a minute. I see the forest floor rapidly approaching, and close my eyes, anticipating my second death. Crunch!

Rather than colliding with the ground as I had expected, my course of momentum changed sideways, and I collided into something with my right side. I open my eyes to find my right shoulder crushed into my rib cage. I attempt to lift my head but find I can't move anything below my jaw. Damn it. Regenerating my shoulder and rib cage were going to take long enough, but a severed spinal cord and dislocated vertebrae would probably take a good ten minutes to fix enough to walk around, and even longer to regain fine motor function.

A few minutes later, Weiss walks through the bushes muttering about something and looks up at me. I can't really move to respond to her presence, so I just hang there, looking just as dead as I am. She screams and runs back the direction she came, dragging someone with her by the sound of it. My head abruptly shifts to the left, indicating that my spine has finally relocated.

With my regained ability to move, I further assess my damage, and understand why she screamed. Just outside of my previous field of vision, a few of my ribs and a cracked part of my color bone were shoved through my skin, though only my collar bone wasn't covered by my hoodie. About three minutes later, my shoulder shifted back into place, and a few of the boned mended themselves, but the regeneration stops there. I'm out of material to repair with, because my internal organs always get repaired first, even if they are useless to me.

I experimentally flex my fingers, move my arms and legs. They're a bit uncoordinated, but at least I can move them. The bushes rustle again, and I quickly adjust my hoodie to hide where my collarbone previously protruded from. Pyrrha steps into view. I wave my left hand,

"Hi."

She looks up at me with a tiny smirk, "Hello again."

She reaches her hand out, and I abruptly fall, cracking my right lower leg bone. 'Damn it,' I think. I meet her eyes, and she meets mine. Then, I remember why we are here, 'cough-like sound' "I guess we are partners now," I say, with some difficulty, looks like my lungs were crushed too. "Which way were we going again?"

She snorts, then gestures in the general direction that I had been flung, "The forest temple is that way, I saw it when we were launched."

"Lead the way," I tell her. She starts walking purposefully in the direction she had gestured, with a shield on one arm, and a sword thing in her other hand. What a coincidence. I check to be sure that I still had my weapons and followed.

A word to the wise for those who have recently recovered from a broken neck: don't take a walk through a forest infested with monsters that in all likelihood want to kill you and eat your soul. Actually, that is always good advice, which once again makes me wonder: 'Why am I still here?!' I think, stumbling over dead sticks and underbrush. Pyrrha and I had been walking linearly for only about five minutes, but it already felt like an eternity, primarily due to the fact that I repeatedly stumbled and fell on my face, which was now becoming covered in scratches.

I fall yet again, this time finding a rock that makes a nice deep gouge in my upper right cheek. Pyrrha, who had the patience of a saint, once again turned around to look at me. She looks like she is about to say something but stops when she notices the new opening in my face.

"Why don't you activate your aura?" she asks.

"What?" I ask, thoroughly confused. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Your aura," she repeats. "Gesundheit," I say. Wait, what does that word mean again?

"You have no idea what I am talking about, do you," she says, understanding and a little confusion showing in her expression.

I answer bluntly, "Nope."

She elaborates, "Aura is the manifestation of our souls. It protects us from harm and heals our injuries. All living things possess an aura."

"It's like a forcefield!" I exclaim. That… sounded awesome, but that last bit concerned me. Would I have one?

"How does it work?" I ask.

"Close your eyes and concentrate," she says.

"Uhh, okay?" I intelligently respond and comply. I feel her hand push my armor plate against me, and I swear that I can hear her thoughts, "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee."

I have no idea why, but I feel a connection to those words, as if they are reaching into my brain and tugging on my lifeforce. I feel her remove her hand, and I open my eyes. Pyrrha is bent over with exhaustion. I reach out to help her, but as I do, I notice my mind and senses sharpen very slightly, my motor function return, and the scratches in my face begin to close, very slowly, almost imperceptibly.

"Are you okay?" I ask Pyrrha, who is no longer leaning over. She just frowns.

"That should have unlocked your aura, but something is wrong. It is like your soul is dedicated to another task," she says downcast, "I am sorry."

I wave off her apology, "It's fine, I'll deal with it." I have a sneaking suspicion on what my soul may be doing.

She continues talking, "I would advise you to talk to a doctor or aura expert, they may be able to help you."

"Sure," I nod, knowing full well that I can't go to a doctor, "Lets just finish initiation, then move on to other problems."

She nods, and we resume our walk through the woods, with me being significantly less clumsy. I press a finger into my wrist to check something. Still no pulse. I mentally sigh. 'At least I didn't die,' I think to myself. I am taken from my internal monologue by a low growl. I turn to my right and see, two glowing red eyes glaring at Pyrrha from the darkness of the trees. I draw my sword, and shout, "Pyrrha!" just as the grim begins to lunge.


	6. Chapter 6

Every deed ever done has an upside and a downside, and my current situation as a prime example. The upside of shoving Pyrrha out of the way of a lunging incarnation of evil is that she doesn't immediately die, and I don't lose my partner. The downside… is that I am now in the direct path of some very long, and very sharp claws.

I try to raise my shield to block the attack, but only succeed in redirecting it to my right by several inches, so it gouges into my right shoulder, rather than decapitating me. Unfortunately, the blow knocked my arm to the side, making me drop my sword. The grim strikes again with its other arm, but this time I block it successfully. By this point, Pyrrha has had time to regain her footing. She shifted her sword to its spear configuration, and threw it, hitting the attacker directly in the center of its chest. The beast goes down, but not before unleashing a roar of pain.

The monster starts to dissolve, so Pyrrha walks over and collects her spear, and I find and re-sheath my sword.

"You okay?" I ask, as I adjust my right sleeve to hide the damage. She nods.

"I am well. Are you injured?" she asks, concerned. She must not have seen me get hit.

"Not bleeding. Now, whe- "I, interrupted by a different growl, and turn.

A house-sided white and black scorpion with glowing red eyes is quickly approaching from our left, claws snapping. It must have heard the howl. Being the wise guy I am, I subtly suggest a course of action.

"RUN!"

I have no sense of direction whatsoever, so I look for Pyrrha while running away in a random direction, which happened to be the opposite from where she was going. I shift direction to catch up to her, but I slip and fall. I stand up as quickly as I can, but I'm not fast enough. The grim scorpion's stinger plunges down, hitting the metal plate of armor across my back, and crushing a few of my ribs with an audible 'crunch'. The stinger rises, and falls again, this time piercing my hood, which had settled to the left side of my head. The scorpion lifts its stinger, and flings me very high, and very far away.

'How many times is this going to happen today?' I think to myself. Am I turning into a bird? From my vantage point, (The air), I can see a clearing with ruins and two dots of familiar colors, one yellow and one black. At this point I realized that was flying in their general direction, and when I crashed into a tree, but not just any tree. No, this was a special tree, that allowed its branches to break, slowing my fall, therefore allowing me to hit the ground without liquefying my brain and creating a nice, brown shower.

I, with no small amount of effort, make it to my feet. That aura stuff helps slightly, slowly mending my damaged nerves, muscles, and bones, but I still look like a guy that jumped off the Empire State Building. Yay, knowledge! My diaphragm is still pretty much mush by now, so I can't call out to them, so I shamble in their direction, hunched over, and looking every bit the zombie I am. Half way across the clearing later, I stop when I hear a noise.

"Heads uuuuuuuup!" I look up, seeing a falling Ruby Rose directly above me, just in time for her to collide with my back, breaking it and knocking me down again. I don't even want to know what my insides look like right now, but I'm pretty sure that if I put a hole in my side, they would flow out like tree sap.

"Oh, my Oum! Are you okay Jaune?" Ruby asks, concerned. I can't stand up until my spine reattaches, so I just (try) to respond, 'I give up, just leave me to die.' Of course, what really came out was more along the lines of " _Groaaaaaaan._ "

The girl in black who smells like a cat asks Yang,

"Did your sister just fall out of the sky?" 'Oh, well just ignore me then,' I think.

"Uhh," was Yang's articulate reply.

The sounds of explosions appear on my right and I turn to my right, and see a bear grim waddling forward, trying to reach something on its back. The grim collapses, showing that hyper orange haired girl on it, laughing maniacally. The bear stops moving, and the orangette's mood instantly changes, now she's disappointed, like she got no cake at her birthday party.

"Aww, it's broken," she looks heartbroken. Her friend in green appears from behind the bear monster.

"Nora, please… Don't do that ever again," he panted out, but the now named Nora was already standing over by me, starting at me intently, with squinted eyes.

"Are you dead?" she asks, completely serious. I shake my head.

"Are you sure?" she asks again. I give her a shaky thumbs-up. Apparently satisfied for the time being, she zips off, and starts singing about being the queen of the castle.

'What was that about?' I wonder, but before I can continue that line of thought, my spine abruptly snaps back together with an audible 'crack.' I shakily stand up and hear a loud noise from my left. I turn, and see Pyrrha running into the clearing, with the giant scorpion thing close behind her. She jumps upward, avoiding being caught in one of its claws, but is smacked by the other one, sending her flying towards us, more specifically, directly at me. 'This is not my day,' I think, as a flying crimsonette crashes into me.

 **Hey, author note: Sorry for the long time to update. Not Dead! Not sure how I want to write this story, so will probably rewrite several times until it good, but will just continue for now. As always, leave a review or suggestion, and have a good night!**


	7. Chapter 7

Thunk! I was knocked over by a flying crimsonette. Fortunately, this time my spine stayed intact. I slowly rise up the ground, twitching occasionally due to torn muscle ligaments, but I can pass that of a wincing, so I put a grimace on my face to add to the facade. I turn to ask Pyrrha if she is alright, but she just screams.  
"YOU'RE DEAD!," she cries out, wide eyed and pointing, and shakily backing away from me. She looks like she's seen a ghost.  
"Uhh, no? He looks alive to me," Ruby adds, a confused expression on her face.  
Nora's friend in green sighs, shaking his head, "This discussion literally just happened, seconds ago."  
Pyrrha, having taken to hiding behind one of the pedestals that I could now see held what appeared to be large chess pieces, called out,  
"I saw it! I saw it with my own eyes!" Pyrrha cried out, hysterically.  
The only other guy present walked over to me, setting a hand on my shoulder.  
"Your partner is a wack-job. Welcome to the club, and good luck," he removed his hand from my shoulder, and walked over to the pedestals, taking a gold cylinder thing, a rook I think it was called. A cursory glance showed that it was the same type of piece that Nora had taken.  
I had no idea if the chosen piece was relevant, so I just grabbed the last remaining rook, a black one, stuffing it in my hoodie pocket.  
I turn around at the sound of a loud Thump. There, in the exact spot I had been standing moments prior, was Weiss, the hilarious grumpy white girl. Without anything to break her fall from who-knows-where, she landed hard. She lies there, clearly dazed, so I walk over to her, and offer my hand.

When she finally shakes off her daze enough to look at me, she turns even paler than she already was, and screams.  
"YOU'RE DEAD!" Ugh. This is going to be a recurring thing isn't it? I look over to the guy in green to see him shaking his head and looking at me with pity. Once I get his name, this guy is going to be my friend.  
"Well, hello to you too," I say, watching her shake and point as she crawls backwards as fast as she can. At about fifteen feet away, she stands up and runs behind one of the pedestals, swiping the last relic on the way.  
"AHHH!" Two feminine voices cry in fear behind a pillar.  
"Guys, we have a problem," The still unnamed girl with a black bow calls, drawing out attention to the direction she is pointing at.  
"Oh. Right," I say, to which one or two of the people gathered may have sweat-dropped at. I forgot about the giant grimm scorpion thing. _Squawk!_ I look up, and see a giant grimm bird circling, and projectile launching razor sharp feathers. This is going to be difficult. Luckily, I know the perfect course of action.  
"Run!" I shout. I don't know which way I'm going, but I doubt that I'm the fastest one here. I'll follow the fastest runners wherever they go, and hope someone can come up with a plan, because I am the least qualified person here to be planning an attack.  
The main group takes off running, with Pyrrha and Weiss not coming closer to me than a range of twenty feet.  
We run for several minutes, and I actually manage to keep up, though primarily due to my inability to get tired. Still, this is a fast bunch. More large grey ruins appear in our path, and by large, I mean gigantic with an even larger bottomless pit around and under it. 'How the hell did I not see this?' I wonder, as we rapidly approach the ruins. The giant grimm bird launches more feathers at us, so we hide behind the stone of the ruins until the rain of death stops.

The grimm scorpion is rapidly growing closer, so we are forced to leave the safety of the ruin's arches, and make a run for the bridge, even faster than before. This proves to be too much for my already damaged muscles, so one _RIIIP_ and a stumble later, I fall into a crevice in the ground. Immobilized and unable to fight back, I close my eyes, and wait. The scorpion grows closer, and closer, then... farther? I open my eyes. Still here. I sit up and look around. THe scorpion appeared to have just walked over me in favor of chasing the other students. The giant grimm bird flies low, crashing through the bridge, destroying it, dividing the group, and cutting off Nora's, Pyrrha's, and the guy in green's rout of escape.  
What I did next was stupid, even by my standards. When my leg muscle reattached enough for me to stand up, I ran at the raised appendage with the stingere and jumped, grabbing on. The monster scorpion ceased its forward direction of travel in favor of attempting to fling me off of it. Each wave of the stinger appendage brought me further up, until I was holding on to the stinger itself. 'Great idea genius, now what?' I think to my self. The scorpion is waving itself around to chaotically for me to draw my sword and attack, so I do the only thing that comes naturally, for me anyway. Crunch! Screech! I bite deeply into the joint that attaches the stinger to the rest of the appendage, drawing screams of pain from the scorpion.

My rating of this meal? 3 out of 10. The food was a 6, tasting like a smoked, overcooked steak. The service however, was terrible.  
The grimm scorpion evidently didn't appreciate me taking a bit out of it, and therefore flung me off, with me coincidentally landing next to the guy in green, who was shooting at the scorpion's new injury with dual green pistols, causing it to break off. As it fell, I had an idea. "Nora, nail it!" shouted, picturing a nail being driven in with a hammer. Nora held an ecstatic expression as she readied her hammer, but her eyes glared at me with a considerable amount of suspicion and distrust. She jumped and propelled herself up with the help of her grenades, and launched herself down, perfectly hitting the dis-attached stinger that had somehow stayed upright, driving it into the center of the scorpion grimm, immediately killing it. A quick glance around showed Pyrrha badly hiding from me behind a rock, and Ruby, running up the side of a cliff, and decapitating the giant bird grimm.  
I cup my hands around my mouth, and yell as loud as I can, "You win, that was awesome."

 **Author note: Hi! Sorry, but I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going with this.**


	8. Chapter 8

"Cardin Winchester, Russel Thresh, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. You four retrieved the bishop relics. You are now team CRDL, lead by, Cardin Winchester.  
'My god, he hasn't changed his presentation structure at all. Seriously, is this guy a robot? At least switch it up a bit,' I thought to myself.  
Ozpin just continued, "Lie Ren, Nora Valkyrie, Jaune Arc, and Pyrrha Nikos. You for retrieved the rook pieces. You are now known as team JNPR, lead by, Jaune Arc.  
'...Oh fuck,' I thought. I glanced at my team to my left. Nora was closest to me, holding a joyous expression on her face, and gave the finally named Lie, or Ren, whatever, a hug.  
Pyrrha, on the other hand, was standing on the other side of Ren. To anyone not looking closely, she looked calm, but she was staring at me like she was thinking of either a way to kill or run away from me. Personally, I'd prefer the latter, but, eh.  
My new team and I stepped down from the stage. Once out of sight of the general audience, Pyrrha put a greater distance between me and her. She was still afraid of me, but she seemed to have cooled down enough not to fly into a panic upon making eye contact.  
In the other room, I heard Ozpin pronounce Ruby the leader of team RWBY, but I was more preoccupied with one though: 'What am I gonna do?!' I thought. Admittedly, I hadn't exactly had a plan for blending in at Beacon, maybe just fade into the background as a shy quiet guy. As recent events had demonstrated, however, that was no longer an option.  
'Why did he have to choose me? He could have chosen Ren or...' I thought back to Pyrrha screaming that I was dead and running around like a lunatic, and Nora... yes. Definitely why didn't he choose Ren.  
Team RWBY was the last team to be announced, so after their... team-ing, everyone was dismissed, and directions to our dorm rooms were sent to our scrolls.  
"Oooh, I wonder what our room looks like?" Nora said, with considerable excitement, and zoomed off like Ruby's semblance. Ren, essentially being her leash, sprinted after her. Pyrrha, not wanting to be alone with me for obvious reasons, ran off after them. Then there was me. Just standing there. In a now deserted room. Alone.  
I was their team leader, and they forgot about me... I don't know wither to be insulted or grateful. Either way, I should head to the room. I pulled out my scroll to check the directions to my dorm, and opened my inbox.  
'Now, how do I view a message?' I thought, looking at the one ' _New Message_ ,' icon on my scroll. I tried tapping the little blue circle. ' _Message Deleted_.' Fuck.


	9. Chapter 9

Just as there are five stages of grief, there are four stages of being lost: confusion, wandering, curling up in a ball and crying, and discovery. I was currently at stage three, sulking in a dark corner in the cafeteria. Without the aid of a map, which I had so stupidly deleted, I was completely lost in the laberinth of a school that was Beacon Academy. After the third hour of wandering, I had given up and decided to wait for my team to appear in the cafeteria for breakfast with the rest of the student populace. In the meantime, I made it my mission to learn every in-and-out there was to know about scrolls, as my current situation had so adequately proven that I was inept at... I just lost my train of thought. Basically, I want to not delete messages on accident anymore.  
Having found what was essentially the internet function of the scrolls, I researched a concise history of known Remnant until the first students started appearing in the cafeteria, mostly appearing in groups of four or eight. I put my scroll away as people I recognized as being first years started appearing, most notably that team CRDL bunch. They stunk of old blood, so I decided to be wary.  
"Pancakes!" I heard a familiar voice call from the cafeteria entrance. I stood up, startling a few people at a nearby table, and started walking towards my new team. The Valkyrie noticed me first.  
"Oh, hello Fearless-leader!" She called out, drawing the attention of Ren and Pyrrha to me. Ren gave me a look of concern and nodded in my direction. Pyrrha backed up half a step and repeatedly murmured "Not real, not real, not real," under her breath, a significantly more mild reaction than yesterday. I guess a night's sleep helped her a lot.  
"Where were you last night? You never appeared at the dorm" Ren, the most logical person of my three teammates asked.  
"I... got lost."  
"How could you have gotten lost? A map of the school and directions to each of our dorm rooms were sent to each of our scrolls," the stoic Ren inquired.  
I winced. "I deleted it on accident."  
Ren shook his head in exasperation, but the slight curves of the edges of his mouth indicated he found a small degree of humor at my predicament.  
"Let me have your contact information, I will send you a copy."  
We exchanged contact information, and this time I did NOT delete the message that Ren sent me. Throughout this exchange, Nora and Pyrrha were standing off to the side, watching me. Nora looked happy, but her eyes were slightly squinted at me, as if still sizing me up. Pyrrha was clearly attempting to look normal, but her face betrayed unease, and I could smell trace amounts of fear in her sweat.

 **Author note: Sorry for OOC characters, I have not yet mastered characterization. I will work on this, and thank you for reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

Having finally gotten my scroll straightened out, my team headed over to the breakfast counter while I sat down at a lone table as far from other people as possible. Shortly later, my team joined me, each carrying their own tray of food.  
"Not hungry?" Ren askes, raising an eyebrow quizzically.  
"Already ate." Not technically a lie, I have eaten within the past 24 hours. Ren nodded and turned to his own meal, which consisted of eggs, pancakes, and breakfast sausage. To his left, Pyrrha was eating a similar meal, looking at me cautiously. I let out a sigh.  
"Pyrrha, why are you looking at me like that?"  
She freezes up, "I saw that deathstalker impale you."  
This legitimately confused me. I'd thought she would say something about the crunching noise. I hadn't actually been stabbed by the deathstalker's stinger, the thing had hit my armor. Then realization struck. She had been running away too, so she probably hadn't clearly seen what happened. I can use this to my advantage.  
"No, you really didn't. The thing impacted my armor, not me." I don't even have to lie to do this.  
"Yes, I did see, and it flung you off, and you were dead," she's a stubborn one.  
"No," I held up my hood for them to see the hole in it, "This was impaled. I was not." I let go of my hood, letting it fall to my shoulder. She's starting to believe me, I can smell the ebbing fear in her sweat.  
I focus my vision on her left eye, and speak slowly, enunciating each word, "I'm Not Dead."  
The fear smell dissipates, she is convinced.  
Throughout the exchange, Ren and Nora watched quietly, or rather, Nora watched quietly, while Ren was looking at Nora with a concerned expression. "Are you alright Nora?" he asked, causing her to blink. Nora brings up a point I hadn't thought of.  
"Then why was Weiss shrieking about you being dead?" she asks. Pyrrha's fear smell returns.  
This, I had been prepared for. I wave off the question. "All the dust she carries around, I'm surprised she doesn't see leprechauns."  
Ren looked confused, "Why would dust make you see leprechauns?"  
I plugged one nostril and inhaled while sweeping my head across my place at the table.  
"Ah," is all the response I get.  
Pyrrha's fear smell disappears again, and she lets out a nearly inaudible laugh.  
After that, we had a normal conversation. Jokes, interests, ideas, all the like were tossed around jovially. Turns out, Pyrrha is a great person to talk to when she isn't screaming about you being dead. Ten or so minutes later, and the first bell rings, signaling the beginning of the first class. Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha took care of their trays, and we walked as a group to class. I mentally compared our group to the 'packs' of undead searching for humans, but I derailed that thought. Don't think about the past, think about the now. According to Ren, who I am now assuming to be the most organized of the group, our first class was Grimm Studies with Professor Port, so we all followed his lead to the classroom, where we arrived about five minutes early. One step in and I swear that I could smell Grimm bacon. Most of the seating was occupied by bored looking students, so we took four of the only empty seats. I glanced around the classroom, idly wondering where team RWBY was, and if they even had the same first hour class.  
Speak of the devil, RWBY just entered as the bells went off. They took the last empty seats, as a man with grey hair and a grey mustache stepped into the front of the classroom. This must be Professor Port. I need all the information I can get. I lean forward.  
"Monsters…" Is all I hear, as I actually feel my brain cells shriveling from this guy's speech. I didn't even know I could sleep, but one moment I'm leaning forward to listen to information, and the next moment I'm watching Weiss jump off a giant snowflake to kill a boar Grimm.  
"Excellent…" I hear the professor say, once again causing my neurons to shrivel, only to be healed by my aura. I can proudly say that I didn't black out this time, but I might have stopped paying attention. It's just self-preservation, honest!  
The class was dismissed, so my team and I headed back to our dorm, because apparently there was only one class period today. I wondered why.  
Entering my team's dorm room, I was greeted by four beds and a nightstand. I walk in squinting and start slowly turning in circles.  
"What are you doing?" Pyrrha asked.  
"It's… too bland. I would've thought… Never mind. Which bed is mine?" I ask. Not that I'll really need it, but I've got to keep up appearances, and living people sleep. Pyrrha just points at the bed to the far left of the four, "We selected beds in correlation to the parts of our names to he team name," she explained. "Got it," I said, walking over to it. There's a school uniform laying neatly folded on it, and something occurred to me. "How did I not get reprimanded for not wearing my school uniform?" I ask no one in particular.  
"It's because you got a weak presence!" Nora exuberantly replies to my rhetorical question.  
"True," Ren says, "It is like you are not even there."  
I honestly don't know if I should be glad or disappointed. Should I be glad that I'm inconspicuous or should I be disappointed that my only friends think that I'm not even here.  
I shake my head. "Anyway, what do you guys want to do for the rest of the day?"  
I hear three synchronous stomach growls.  
"Lunch it is."  
 **Sorry about chapter, formatting got messed up. I will eventually rewrite entire story. Expect another chapter within next week.**


	11. Chapter 11

As it turns out, it was dinner time, not lunch. Somehow, our one class of the day had managed to stretch through lunch into the evening without anyone noticing. I was more or less dragged over to the meal counter, which like breakfast was set up like a buffet. I grabbed a tray and grabbed myself a few chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs.  
Why chicken nuggets you ask? Firstly, they are meat, so significantly less contradictory to my actual diet. Secondly, they were easier to grab in smaller portions, and I knew they were just going to come back up later, so why waste perfectly good (for most people) food? My team and I sat at the solitary table that we had eaten breakfast at.  
Fortunately, we were able to sit down and converse without the preceding drama that had been present at breakfast. While we were talking and the rest of my team was eating, a redhead's eyes flicked to me.  
"Not gonna eat, Fearless Leader?" Nora asked, voice full of curiosity. Damn it Nora. Now all three of them were looking at me expectantly.  
"Not hungry."  
"Considering that we did not eat lunch, I find that hard to believe," Pyrrha added in.  
"Jaune, it isn't healthy for you to skip meals. At the very least eat what you have there," Ren added from my right. Sure, like they hadn't missed any meals in the past few days. This was pure hypocrisy.  
I looked down at my six chicken nuggets with apprehension. I slowly picked one up and put it in my mouth. Repulsive texture. I chewed. It tasted like shit. I look back up to my team. "There. Happy?"  
They all continued to look at me expectantly. I wasn't going to be able to weasel my way out of this one. I steeled my nerves and repeated my actions five more times. Swallowing the last of my last chicken nugget, they were finally satisfied, and the conversation resumed as it had before, though I didn't join in. I was still recovering from my own personal hell. Once everyone had finished dinner, we took care of our trays, and returned to our dorm rooms.  
The moment we arrived at our dorm, I excused myself to go to the restroom, where I lost my supper. One thorough mouth rinsing later, I returned to the dorm, finding everyone lazing about. Nora was listening to music through some pink headphones, while Pyrrha and Ren were looking over our class schedule. I figured that I should probably have a general idea of what's going on, so I walked over and joined them.  
I was probably imagining it, but I felt like someone was watching me, but when I looked around, there was just Nora, still looking at her scroll, presumably searching for a different song to play. I shook it off as bad nerves and continued to go through our classes, their times, and assigned homework.  
The time flew by, but, I was now confronted with a new problem: sleeping. Or rather the appearance of sleeping. In a not so surprising lack of foresight, I didn't own any sleeping garments. I didn't really have any other alternatives, so I changed into my pants and undershirt from my school uniform. I'd considered just the pants, but aura evidently healed me at a much slower rate than consumption of human flesh, because I could still see the spots on my torso where bone had poked through.  
Stepping out of the dorm bathroom, everyone else was already dressed in their sleeping garments and getting ready to sleep. Pyrrha took notice of my attire, and spoke up.  
"Why are you wearing that?" she asked.  
The truth was the best answer to this question. "I don't have anything else.  
"Then why also wear the dress shirt?" she further inquired.  
The truth was not the best answer to this question. "I'm shy." It was a pathetic excuse, and I knew it, but Pyrrha let the question drop, so that was enough for me.  
Each of my three teammates climbed into bed, and drifted off with various degrees of ease. Pyrrha zonked out instantly. Ren looked at Nora every couple of minutes, until he eventually dozed off too. Nora, on the other hand, appeared to fall asleep quickly, but I could smell the tension on her. She was pretending, and very good at it.  
This was an inconvenience, as I had planned on spending the night further researching Remnant and practicing my reading ability. The information accumulation I had gotten from my first and only human kill on Remnant had partially revived my literacy, but it was still a struggle.  
Back to the topic at hand, I didn't want to spend the night pretending to sleep so that another person pretending to sleep wouldn't notice and ask questions. Still, I had little choice on the matter. I placed my scroll on a charger, one of many that I had bought, and climbed into bed, feigning sleep, and waited.  
A lot of time passed, but eventually Nora drifted off into a restless sleep. I could tell she was no longer conscious by her smell. I opened my eyes and quietly reached for my scroll. Three hours. Nora and I had been pretending to sleep for three fucking hours.  
There was something up with this girl. There was no way the incarnation of sugar, who appeared to be unable to be attentive to one topic for more than five consecutive minutes, was able to fake sleep for three consecutive hours. I don't honestly know what I should do about it, so I decided to just be cautious.  
I returned to my current task at hand, opening the internet browser and contemplating what I should research next. Then I had an Idea. I tapped on the search bar. 'Definition of tournament'


	12. Chapter 12

After searching the definitions of any words I'd heard but didn't know the meaning of, I'd once again been stumped on what to look up. What was common knowledge? What wasn't? It wasn't as if there was an online list of common knowledge topics! I checked.  
Through my searches, I eventually stumbled on Remnant's equivalent of Wikipedia, here called Dustpedia, and proceeded to basically wiki-race, with the differences being me reading the entirety of each article, and that I had no end destination article.  
This, I found, was a somewhat effective way of gathering information. I found definitively useful articles, such as prerequisits for being a huntsman in Vale, along with names of politicions, etc.  
I found articles that were less useful, but still interesting to me, such as the distribution of known dust mines, or how various electronic devices worked.  
I mostly, however, pages about useless topics like celebrities, or various battles throughout history. Knowing everything about the battle of Fort Castle wasn't going to help me be a better huntsman, right?  
I shook my head and checked on my teammates. All still sleeping. My scroll's clock said 6:59 AM, so I decided to end my research there for the night err… morning. I set my scroll back on the charger, and placed myself in a sleeping position, closing my eyes.  
Evidently, I either had been blessed by lady luck or some other high deity, because very soon after, someone's scroll went off. One would think that the sound would take a while to rouse a person, because most people take a while to wake up, right? Evidently not in this case. The scroll alarm was shut off before it was half way through the first beep.  
I heard rustling from the bed beside mine, so I turned my head to look. Nora was sitting up in her bed, looking around the room as if she expected to be attacked by the shadows. She evidently started her sweep at my side of the room, as she didn't appear to notice my conscious state. I silently laid my head back down in its previous position, and soon after, I heard more rustling, then silence. I waited a few moments then peeked at my odd teammate. She was, to all appearances, soundly asleep, but once again was pretending.  
Twenty minutes later, Pyrrha's alarm went off. Since she wasn't nearly so quick to turn off the alarm as Nora had been, the beeping soon roused everyone in the room. Pyrrha, looking more like a zombie than I do, climbed out of bed and shut off her alarm. She mumbled, "I'm sorry…," slowly trudging to the dorm kitchenette, groaning "Coffee…"  
Nora quickly sat up. "I want some!" She shouted gleefully. Ren quickly sat up. "No!" he yelled, quickly chasing after her to stop a potentially apocalyptic disaster. Soon I was the only person left in the immediate room. Now, I decided, would be the best opportunity to 'clean up.' I headed to the bathroom, grabbing my bag along the way.  
I really didn't want to do laundry, so I stepped into the shower with my clothes on and used a wet washcloth to clean the areas on me where bone had pierced through skin, and the corresponding spots where I had leaked into my clothes. The openings were completely closed, so I didn't have to be quite as careful around my teammates and human beings in general. That last thought brought up another problem. Faunus have better senses than humans, so they should be able to smell something wrong a mile away.  
I stepped out of the shower and toweled off my hair and clothes. Most people would probably be bothered by the feeling of damp clothes or cold, but it didn't bother me for obvious reasons. I applied an excessive amount of spray deodorant all over myself and all my clothes, slipping the half empty can into one of my uniform's pockets. I stepped out of the bathroom, and Nora zipped by me, claiming the bathroom for herself. I shook my head, and walked over to Ren.

"What class do we have today?" I asked.  
"Our first class is history with Doctor Oobleck."  
"Can-"  
"I will lead the way," Ren cut me off, "Our first night as a team made it very obvious you are bad with direction."  
I nodded, mostly grateful and slightly hurt, and walked away, sitting on the edge of my own bed. Pyrrha asked from across the room, "Did you shower in your school uniform?"  
"Yes."  
"Why?"  
"I hate laundry."  
"GENIUS!" Nora shouted from within the bathroom.  
Everything progressed slowly that morning, from the conversations, to the preparation for classes, to our walking pace to the cafeteria. At least, our pace was slow until someone in one of the groups leaving the cafeteria mentioned the word 'pancake,' then it was a mad dash to keep up with Nora as she was reminded of her apparent favorite food.  
Breakfast today was like our last team meal, except with breakfast foods. I was once again pressured into taking and eating a portion of food that did not benefit me in the slightest. Our team once again talked about nothing in particular was we discarded our trays and walked to first hour history.  
As it would turn out, I had wasted my time researching Remnant and all its history all night on my scroll which, now that I thought about it, was still on the charger in my dorm. Dr. Oobleck seemed intent on teaching the entirety of the history of remnant within the next week.  
On one hand, it was quite convenient to have a lot of the information I wanted to know all given to me at once. On the other, the doctor sometimes spoke so fast that he was difficult to understand. For once, er… once again, I was reaping the benefits of being a zombie: my brain, and therefore my mind, didn't get tired, so I didn't lose focus or zone out throughout the entire lecture.  
Quick glances showed that most students didn't share my focus. Nora's eyes had completely glazed over. Pyrrha and Ren appeared to be trying, but they were obviously losing focus. Everyone jumped as the class bell went off.  
"My goodness, is that the time? We still had so much to go over!" the obviously overcaffinated/cocained professor/doctor quickly said with disappointment. That sentence gave me a headache just thinking about it. Ugh.  
Each of my teammates stood up in unison, once again making me feel out of place. Ren, being the de-facto guide and schedule coordinator, mentioned some brief direcitons, and team JNPR started walking to our next class. As we walked, I only had one thought on my mind. 'Why did I think Beacon was a good idea again?'


	13. Chapter 13

"Good morning class, my name is Ms. Goodwitch. I will be your combat instructor for the foreseeable future."  
As it would turn out, our next class was combat class, the primary focal point of the academy. I was surprised to find to see that Ms. Goodwitch actually taught a class, I'm not sure why though.  
"On an ordinary day, we would go over various battle techniques, followed by a spar, though today you will be connecting your scrolls to the Beacon network and calibrating their aura detection software," Ms. Goodwitch continued, "Now, everyone launch the aura meter program on your scrolls…" she continued to give instructions in an impatient manner.  
Clearly, she would rather be doing something else, probably actual teaching rather than technical report representative. Each student present followed her instructions, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, though most seemed as impatient, if not more so than Ms. Goodwitch.  
Ruby and Yang for example, were very impatient, most likely wanting to get into the actual class as soon as possible. Ren followed the steps patiently, showing no visible emotion as he calmly tapped through the menus. Pyrrha was following through the menus with a practiced ease, she must have done something similar for her tournaments.  
I, though I wasn't having any trouble, was more than a little nervous about those aura detection systems, and my abnormal aura. As if just to prove my fears, a few steps later I ran into a problem.  
"Now, if you all followed my steps correctly, your aura should be displayed next to your name on the overhead screen," Ms. Goodwitch continued. I looked up at the screen, scanning the list apprehensively.  
Ruby Rose – Full Green Bar  
Weiss Schnee – Full Green Bar  
This pattern continued with around a dozen or so students, then:  
Jaune Arc – Error  
'Fuck.'  
"Mr. Arc, was I not clear in my instructions?" Ms. Goodwitch asked, now clearly irritated. Shit, now I'm in the spotlight.  
"I did exactly what you instructed." Shit, was that backtalking?  
"Come here, Mr. Arc." Yep, she was pissed. I walked up to the stage, now very apprehensive. She once again gave a series of instructions, this time watching every step as I did them.  
"There. Next time, please listen Mr. Arc," She sternly stated and turned away. I looked up at the screen again.  
Jaune Arc – Error  
Nope, still there, Still an error. Ms. Goodwitch remained oblivious of this fact, evidently confident that the error was due to my incompetence, so the problem must have been solved.  
"Uhhh…" I muttered, not sure what to do. Evidently, Ms. Goodwitch heard me.  
"What is it now, Mr. Arc?" she snapped, clearly irritated. Startled, I just pointed at the error next to my name on the overhead monitor. She looked this time, actually showing a little surprise at the problem she oh so perfectly solved wasn't solved. She turned towards me.  
"My apologies, Mr. Arc. If you would speak to Dr. Usanagi after four o'clock, she should be able to fix this problem," Ms. Goodwitch spoke in an apologetic tone. I just nodded and backed into the crowd. Ms. Goodwitch continued her explanation of her class, and explained the arena system until the bell rang ending class.  
Apparently, classes are two-hours long each, so it was about lunch time. Our usual mealtime routine happened, my team made me eat three chicken nuggets, we talked and laughed for a while, I threw up in the men's bathroom, we talked and laughed some more, we went to grim studies. I mentioned the oddness of our school schedule, only to once again be met with confused expressions. I'm mostly resigned to the fact that no one else is going to notice anything strange, so I am quick to move on.  
After grim studies was over, Nora reminded me that I had to go meet the elusive Dr. Usanagi.  
"Alright then, I'll meet you guys at the dorm." I started to walk off in a random direction, but Ren caught my shoulder.  
"Do you know where you are going?" he asked, raising his left eyebrow. Shit, he had me there.  
"…No."  
Ren nodded, as if expecting this, which I guess is fair. He took out his scroll and gestured me over. He then proceeded to explain how Beacon's map system worked. As an example, he showed me the search bar, typed in 'usanagi' and immediately her classroom was marked on the map.  
"Ok, I get it," I said. And the group departed.  
Personally, I thought the map of Beacon was stupid. At least the maps that worked in Vale made convenient highlighted paths for me to follow. At Beacon I had to look at the end destination and figure out how to get there, and there in lies the problem: I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get to her classroom. Twenty minutes of circling the same spot later I figured out her classroom was on the second floor, and it didn't take too long after that for me to arrive. I checked the time on my scroll. 4:17. Alright, It took a little longer than I thought to find my way here, but at least I got here.  
After double checking that I was, in fact, standing in front of the correct room, I opened the door, and stepped in.  
It looked like a normal classroom… except that you could not see the walls. Not like they were invisible or anything, but there were so many pieces of paper, maps, and schematics stapled to them, that not an inch of bare wall could be seen. There was a woman with long magenta hair and a white lab coat standing at the front of the classroom, staring at a series of mathematical equations and pictures of warped grids.  
She appeared to notice my presence, as she quickly turned around.  
"Hello! Who are you?" she borderline shouted, "Oh wait, you must be Jaune! Glynda told me you were coming! I am Violette Usanagi, but you can call me Violette!"  
I was honestly taken aback by this woman. She seemed friendly, but everything she said was louder than it needed to be.  
"Uhm, yes. That is me that you speak of," I really didn't know what to say.  
"Hold still!" She picked up a rectangular device with a handle, trigger, and a lot of wires sticking out of it. The entire thing screamed 'unfinished' and 'unsafe' and 'run like hell' to me. Before I could do anything, she pointed it at me and pulled the trigger. The world went white…  
Then it went blurry, then it went back to normal. I was lying on the floor. Why was I on the floor? Violette was staring at a little screen on the back of the device with interest.  
"What the hell was that?" I demanded, standing back up. The woman that just shot me looked at me curiously for a couple seconds, then raises an ordinary pistol and shoots me dead center in my heart. The force knocks me back down.  
"What the fuck?!" I wheeze out. Not from pain, but she just shot my left lung so I can't exactly yell now, can I? Violette nods and puts the gun away.  
"You can get up now, I know you're fine." What?  
Violette walks over to me with an expression that is one part confusion, one part curiosity, and one part… excitement? She leans in over me, grinning. I don't like this.  
"So tell me," she says, still grinning, "How long have you been dead for?"  
Oh fuck!

 **Author note: HI! This is an AU, and creativity within predetermined boundaries is difficult, so there will be a few OC's, but for the most part I'll try to balance them, and they shouldn't be too big of a part of this story. I don't hate Goodwitch, so this isn't bashing. Thanks for reading!**


	14. Chapter 14

I didn't know what to do. I _really_ didn't know what to do. What are you supposed to do when a crazy lady shoots you then asks how long you have been dead?

"Negative five minutes," I wheeze. Violette chuckles loudly, which fits in well with the rest of her voice so far.

"I see you're a smart-ass. No, we both know you were dead long before you walked through my door. Firstly," She reaches into my uniform pocket, pulling out a partially empty can of spray deodorant. "You wear way too much of this stuff. More than enough to mask the smell of decay even from a Faunus." Shit.

Violette takes a sharpie marker from her left lab coat pocket and sticks it right into the bullet hole in my chest. She draws it back out and points at the gunk stuck to it, "Your blood is a dark brown, barely fluid. That takes at least a week of decay." Fuck.

She reaches into a different pocket and takes out a scroll. She opens an app and shows me… Me. In my dorm bathroom. Looking at the holes in my chest where ribs had poked through.

Violette raised an eyebrow, "Need I say more?" I shook my head. She started talk-shouting again. "Even if I had been wrong in my suspicions," She held up the prototype box gun thing, "This right here shows a complete lack of pulse, breathing, and body heat. Along with lower than average neural activity."

Great. Now I'm not only dead, I'm also a dumb-ass.

"Fine, I admit it. I'm dead. Now what?" I say, standing up confrontationally. Yeah, I don't really have a lot of common sense. Taunt the lady with the gun. Luckily, I didn't gain another bullet hole.

Violette looks at me, "I want to know how long you have been dead, what your era was like pre and post disaster, and if I can have this for my collection of historical artifacts." Era? She holds up a familiar book. The book I spend decades wandering around with on Earth. The book I left in my rocket locker. Okay, so first she stalks me, then shoots me, now starts stealing my stuff? This is a mugging!

"Whatever. Take it. What do you mean era?" I put a hand over the hole in my chest, so it was a bit easier to talk now. The obviously crazy doctor grinned and walked over to her desk, putting my book who knows where.

"Obviously, the time you were from before you touched a glowing meteorite." What? She knows about the meteor? Time to play dumb.

"Time? No, I'm from the present like everyone else." Okay, that sounded suspicious even to my ears. Seriously though, how would a person say that they weren't a time traveler… You know what? Never mind. Guess I wasn't just playing dumb.

Violette sighed in exasperation. Even her sighs were loud, "Alright. You are obviously just going to keep playing dumb, so I'm just going to pretend you already stopped and asked an intelligent question." Hey!

The doctor tapped a code onto the top of her desk, and a large holographic screen appeared in front of the papers on her back wall. She tapped on an apparently invisible keypad on her desk a few more times, and an image of several colored rocks appeared, each of them with jagged edges and slight porosity. "These are samples of unstable, hyper charged matter."  
The screen shifted to a black screen with three horizontal lines, one above the other. "This is an extremely simplified diagram of, for lack of a better term, existence." Alright. The universe is made up of three lines. Got it.

"Each 'dimension' as others would call them, is actually all the matter and energy in a space vibrating at a different frequency. You don't notice it because all of it moves in sync. We are here, at eight light-meters per cycle."

I interrupted her. "Light meters? That sounds kind of made up."

"SHUT UP! I invented it, I'll call it what I want! Anyway, distance is measured in light-years, so naturally light-meters would be the amount of time it takes light to travel a meter, about three times ten to the negative eighth power seconds." We're getting a little off topic.

"Anyway, slight off topic tangent." Oh, the horror! I think like the crazy lady.

The word 'us' appeared on the middle line, followed by '8 light-meters per cycle. (lm/c'

"Immediately above and below us are eighteen lm/c and two lm/c respectively." The corresponding numbers appeared on the corresponding lines. When did she set this presentation up?

"Now, one would naturally assume that each so-called dimension would be governed by its own unique laws of physics or lack thereof." I'll bet ten lien she says its wrong. "And they would be absolutely right!" Damn it.

"Our lower vibrational neighbor that I'll dub the second dimension is not governed by a fluid concept of time. The heat death of the universe could occur a millionfold for us, and not even a moment will have passed in the second dimension. This is where you were."

Okay, now I was more than a little confused. In the past fifteen minutes I've been shot, lectured on some physics concept by a crazy lady who is way too loud, and told that I'm a stupid undead dimension jumping time traveler.

"Why is this relevant?" I ask. There's probably more important information here that we could skip to.

Violette lets out a frustrated groan and walks over to the holographic screen. "You touch pretty rock," the screen changed back to the various colored rocks. "You go here," the screen changed back to the dimensions, and she points at the bottom one. "You wait millennia, oops, I mean really long time, then you go back here," she points at the line representing our dimension.

Violette backs away from the hologram, and it disappears. I know that she's mocking me, but I find it funnier than anything. Aww, she thinks I'm a baby!

She walks over and points at me. "I know you dead. I know you not from this time period. I see you guys before." This gets my attention. Other zombies? Ugh, ridiculous word. Other undead? I ask, "Others like me?"

She backs up, done mocking me. "Not exactly. The others weren't interested in having a nice chat. I didn't get too worked up about it though. They were only after my brains, didn't care about my looks or how that made me feel."

"Like a piece of meat?"

She flashes a real grin. "No, like a badass." Her face abruptly changes as she refocuses. "What I want to know is when you died, how you died, how long you have been dead, and what the world was like pre-disaster." She asks in a tone of scientific curiosity.

"I don't remember my death or anything prior, just my name. My best guess is early on, because things like power plants were still running, and there were less people every day. I died about one hundred seventy-six years prior to waking up in a dumpster in downtown Vale." Yeah, my mind had cleared substantially over the time since my aura was unlocked.

The doctor frowned. "That is rather disappointing. Do tell me if you remember something!" Why is she shouting again?

"I will," I assured her.

"Good. Now, about your aura problem." She digs around in her lab coat pocket for something, "Your aura is almost entirely dedicated to keeping you 'alive', so you won't receive its regular benefits naturally. However, eighteenium was used to create aura so it should be able to augment it." What? She pulls a cylinder out of her pocket, roughly the size of her thumb. She pulled my hand away from my bullet hole and shoved the cylinder inside.

Immediately, I feel a change. I am stronger. I am faster. I am powerful. I am…

"Remnant to Jaune!" Violette shouts even by her standards right in my face. Seriously, that deserved a second exclamation point.

"What?"

"You started to phase out of existence for a second. Must have to do with the eighteenium type. You're fine." Phasing out of existence doesn't sound fine! And what is eighteenium?

She continued talking, "Well, we have spent enough time here today. Don't forget to give me any details you remember. You are dismissed." She turned back to her desk and started digging through papers. No way to be clearer about a dismissal than that. I turned and started walking away. I started checking my newest injury. There was no newest injury. The hole was already gone. Wow, aura was awesome when it worked properly.

As I opened the door to leave, Violette called out to me. "Hey, Jaune," I turned to look at her.

"What?"

"The rock that brought you here, what color was it?"

I thought about it. "From a distance, white. Up close, it didn't glow any particular color, it just _was_."

Violette nodded, and I closed the door. I knew that I was going to need my scroll's map of Beacon to find my way back to my dorm, so I brought it out. As I unlocked it, I noticed the time. 4:17. Well, now it says 4:18, but still…

How?

 **Author Note: I will try to progressively type more for each chapter, but don't necessarily expect story quality to increase. This is entirely for practice. Disclaimer: Pretty much all of the science mentioned this chapter is complete bogus that I made up while trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. I guess I lied in an earlier chapter, OC's will play a large part in this story because they don't constrain story flow to such tight predefined parameters. Hope you enjoyed, otherwise you are welcome to stop reading.**


	15. Chapter 15

This time I had much less difficulty with the map software, so I made it back to my dorm at 4:32. I stepped into the room to find everyone… reading. Except Nora, she was playing on her scroll with her headphones on, presumably playing music.

When I closed the door behind me, Pyrrha looked up at me and smiled. Good, the weariness was starting to get old.

"How did your appointment go?" she asked.

"Appointment?" I ask, not following.

Ren spoke up from his book, "You visited a doctor, so that's where she gets appointment."

Ah. I get it. "It went fine. Problem's fixed and everything."

"That is good," Pyrrha went back to her book. Yeah, no talking is going to happen right now. I didn't feel like doing any more research right now, so I just laid back on my mattress and thought about my conversation with Violette. Other undead. Not sentient ones like me presumably, but the concern still stood. The last undead other than me had rotted away entirely _decades_ before my coming to Remnant. For Usagani to have encountered any means that things have disappeared throughout history and appeared on Remnant within the last twenty or so years. There could be people from pre-apocalypse Earth currently roaming downtown Vale, and I wouldn't even know.

And there are the other undead to consider. All of Earth had ended from a zombie apocalypse, and that was without giant monsters made of hatred trying to exterminate them. And the grimm appeared to ignore undead entirely, otherwise I would be dead-dead already. If another outbreak started, the world would end _again_. And that would be bad. I should know.

I closed my eyes and tried to block out those confusing and depressing thoughts. I turned my head left to see what my teammates were doing, but Nora's scroll caught my attention. She was looking at… blueprints. And drawing little shapes at specific points. And writing notes next to them.

Yeah, that's not concerning. I'd thought she was playing video games. Nora seemed to sense my staring, because suddenly her screen shifted to some melee combat game I'd never seen before.

Ren closed and sat down his book, drawing my attention to him.

"It's 5:30 Nora, time to put the game away." How had that much time passed?

A very brief look of annoyance passed over Nora's face, quickly turning to a pout, "Aww, but Renny, I just got to level twenty-seven!"

"Well, if you don't want to eat…" Ren started, but Nora suddenly vanished from her spot and the door was suddenly open. Ren followed Nora, Pyrrha followed Ren, and I followed Pyrrha. I'm just going to bet right now that this is going to be a frequent occurrence.

"No Nora, you cannot eat pancakes for supper." Ren told a pouting Nora, who was currently staring disappointedly at her chicken nuggets and apple sauce. I'd call her a child, but that would be a little hypocritical.

"But Reeen, they're my comfort food. I always eat them when I'm having a bad day," Nora whined.

"But you eat pancakes every day," I felt the need to point out, "in the morning."  
Nora went still for a couple moments with a blank expression, then she began talking again.

"But Fearless-leader over there eats chicken nuggets every meal!"

"We are lucky to get him to eat anything Nora," Pyrrha supplied.

I felt the need to defend my dietary choices, "I don't eat the same thing every meal. The nuggets at lunch were shaped like dinosaurs. These are just circles. Big difference.

"No, there really isn't," Ren said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I legitimately have no idea how you are still alive, with a diet like that," Pyrrha said, copying Ren.

I just shrugged, swallowing my last chicken nugget whole. I'd found they were easier to eat that way. I looked around, noticing something. "Where is team RWBY?"

"We're right here, Jaune," said Ruby, sitting literally straight across from me at the same table. Great, now I feel like a dick.

"Oh, hi Ruby," I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'd almost completely forgotten about Ruby and her team. Friend of the year here. "How've things been going?"

"They're going good. Weiss started to accept me as teammate and leader."

I hadn't known there'd been a problem, though I shouldn't have been surprised, "That's good. Does she still think I'm dead?" I'm not worried, just curious.

"Nope. Her more rational side took over, and that was resolved shortly after her problems with me were over with." That's good. I want to keep that a secret as long as possible. "On another note, did you get that essay finished?" Essay?

"What essay?"

"The one assigned in Professor Port's class on the first day. Didn't you do it?"

Damn it.

 **Important: I'm not gonna sugarcoat it people, I'm done. Working on this story just isn't enjoyable anymore, and I'm pretty sure I messed a bunch of stuff up. (Haven't even seen vol 4 yet) I may resume this story in the future, but It'll probably be a while. If anyone likes this story or the general idea, they may freely adopt it or rewrite it better. I'll see you again, and thank you for reading my fanfic.**


End file.
